Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a position information authoring system, a position information authoring apparatus, and a position information authoring method for grasping a position of equipment arranged in a plant.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2015-168222, filed on Aug. 27, 2015, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Description of Related Art
Recently, there is a global trend on production sites in which Internet of Things (Iot) technology has been introduced, and thereby activities for innovating operations on production sites have been developed. A positioning technology (a technique for acquiring position information) as represented by a Global Positioning System (GPS) has been a focus of attention as one of techniques required in operation innovation activities on production sites.
For example, United States Patent Application, Publication No. 2007/0143013 (hereinafter, referred to as “Patent Document 1”) has proposed a systematic technique that utilizes position information acquired by measurement of a positioning system, such as a GPS, which uses satellites (positioning satellites). In the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, a position information terminal, which includes a positioning sensor such as a GPS sensor for receiving radio waves emitted from a positioning satellite, receives the radio waves emitted from the positioning satellite at constant or arbitrary timing to acquire position information, and identifies an actual position based on the acquired position information. In the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, a processing in accordance with the current position of the position information terminal is performed based on a virtual geographical borderline set on a map (geofence: virtual geographical borderline) and the identified actual position. For example, the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 can provide information such as equipment around the current position of the position information terminal, in other words, the current position of a user using the position information terminal, and the service contents of the equipment.
As another technique for utilizing position information, which is acquired by measurement of a positioning system using a positioning satellite, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2003-305276 (hereinafter, referred to as “Patent Document 2”) has proposed a systematic technique for superimposing and representing a virtual space and an actual space. In the technique disclosed in Patent Document 2, a position (coordinate) in the virtual space and the a position (latitude, longitude, height) in the actual space are associated with each other, and thereby virtual things in the virtual space can be represented as if the virtual things are in the actual space.
In a plant including various pieces of equipment, the equipment arranged in the plant and the measured results of a measurement instrument installed on a specific site of each equipment are confirmed, and thereby routine inspection works for the equipment and works for handling troubles such as failures and defects are performed. Workers for the works visit the specific site such as equipment, which is a site of work, and performs the works. Therefore, as one of the activities of operation innovation in the plan, the association of the position of each equipment arranged in the plant with the work to be performed in the equipment is considered. Generally, a site of a plant is large, and a plurality of equipment and a plurality of pipes can become confusing in a plant. In addition, changes to equipment and a measurement instrument in a plant such as movement and addition are performed. Therefore, it is desirable for workers to accurately visit a specific site, which is a site of work.
However, the measurement accuracy of a positioning system using a positioning satellite such as a GPS is low, the position represented by position information acquired by the measurement based on radio waves emitted from the positioning satellite includes an error of a few meters (generally, it is considered to be 5 m to 10 m). Therefore, it is difficult to identify a precise position in a plant only by identifying a position acquired by a position information terminal as an actual position, as the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1. Recently, a position correction technique such as an Assisted GPS: A-GPS) that corrects results (positions) measured by a GPS using radio waves in wireless communication such as a Wi-Fi (registered trademark) has been proposed. However, since the measurement error of the positioning system using the positioning satellite such as a GPS is not constant and the measurement accuracy varies depending on the area, weather, position, or the like, it is difficult to guarantee acquirement of position information with stable accuracy even if the position correction technique is applied to the positioning system.
Under an environment in which radio waves emitted from a positioning satellite cannot be received, for example, in the shadows of equipment which the radio waves emitted from the positioning satellite do not reach or in equipment (room inside), the measurement by the positioning system using the positioning satellite cannot be performed. Therefore, recently, as a means for measuring an indoor position, an indoor position measuring technique also has been proposed that measures positions using an Indoor MEssaging System (IMPS), Wi-Fi (registered trademark), Bluetooth (registered trademark), or the like. In addition, recently, a technique for identifying a position using a distance image sensor also has been proposed. However, since, in any positioning techniques, a system combining equipment for emitting position information and a sensor is used in a similar way to the system combining the positioning satellite and the positioning sensor disclosed in Patent Document 1, it is difficult to greatly improve the measurement accuracy of the current positioning system such as a GPS which uses positioning satellites.
It is also considered to improve the correction accuracy by improving the performance of a sensor included in a position information terminal to increase the measurement accuracy, or by increasing the number of access points of Wi-Fi (registered trademark) to increase points to be measured per unit area. However, from the aspect of cost, it is not useful to generically apply the method for improving measurement accuracy accompanied by such capability improvement or equipment investment to a plant environment, which has a large site and a strict restriction when electrical devices are installed. The larger the site of a plant is, the lower the practical utility is.
In a plant, for example, a measurement of height is also needed in order to represent the height of a place on which a measure is installed. For example, in addition to latitude and longitude, a GPS can also measure height. However, it is necessary to receive more radio waves from a GPS satellite when height measurement is performed by a GPS, than those when latitude and longitude measurement is performed, the result (position) accuracy of the height measurement is lower than that of the latitude and longitude measurement, and generally, it is considered to include an error of about 15 m. The above-described indoor position measuring technique is also applicable to the height measurement. Therefore, in a plant requiring stereoscopic measurement, in other words, three-dimensional measurement, the lack of height information or the low measurement accuracy narrows the scope of activity for utilizing position information in the operation innovation.